


Rosemary and Old Spice

by BleakCinema



Series: New Americana [1]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Jessica Jones (TV), Punisher, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Young Avengers
Genre: Daddy Issues, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, M/M, Matt Murdock's daddy issues, Post Mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-10
Updated: 2016-05-10
Packaged: 2018-06-07 12:23:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6803932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BleakCinema/pseuds/BleakCinema
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt's home alone, Frank's off doing underground work in parts unknown, their son is at a crossroads, and Jessica Jones is 1000% done with all of them dancing around each other.  She corners Matt on his way home from Mass to force him to confront some hard truths about Jack growing up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rosemary and Old Spice

**New Americana** \- "Old Spice and Rosemary"

_____

 

_Synopsis_

_Matt's home alone, Frank's off doing underground work in parts unknown, their son is at a crossroads, and Jessica Jones is 1000% done with all of them dancing around each other.  She corners Matt on his way home from Mass to force him to confront some hard truths about Jack growing up._

 

_______

 

Matt smelled the biting tang of second tier Kentucky bourbon a good minute before Jessica said, “We need to talk about Jack, Murdock.”

 

There it was.

 

The man reached up with fight calloused fingers to rub at the bridge of his nose fitfully, trying to stave off the truly righteous headache brewing at the front of his skull.  It was a middling warm Sunday towards the beginning of what was promising to be a very wet spring.  Jessica had caught him as he was making his way back from Mass, falling easily into step with him.  He could hear the wind cutting through the sharp angles her elbows made where her arms were tucked into her pockets.  He used it to make out the impression of her long hair where it caught in the stray tangles.  

 

Matt countered her, voice soothing, “There’s nothing to discuss, Jessica.”

 

“The state of the kid says otherwise,” she bit back, burying the needle on the ‘no-time-for-Matthew-Michael-Murdock’s-bullshit’ meter.

 

“Where is he?”

 

He registered a wet click that must have been a truly impressive eye-roll, “Still at the bar.  Still with Luke.  Still in the back room.  Still doing his homework.  Christ, Matt, but you could scrape his bottom lip of the floor he’s so mopey.  He’s giving you a run for your money and that my friend is no small feat.”

 

“Language,” Matt said absently, more habit than heat, as he led them back towards his apartment.

 

This was not a conversation to be had out in the open.  Thankfully, Jessica cottoned on with the same easy speed her sharp mind usually granted and she fell silent while they walked.  Matt was a wise enough man to know the reprieve was only that, a tactical retreat.  His neck was in no way out of the noose yet.  He could hear the determined drumbeat of her heart so crisp and clear that it became the soundtrack against which his newly minted headache grew.  It thrummed in staccato counterpoint to her boots against the pavement with every step they took.  She carried the scent of developer and bourbon around in her skin with her, a permanent part of her, identifying as a thumb print to the lawyer’s heightened senses.

 

Jessica Jones was an impressive woman.  She telegraphed her intent like an untrained southpaw, but that was mainly because it didn’t matter if you knew she was coming.  She’d lay you out on the canvas whether or not you were ready for her.  Jessica Jones was a force of nature, one that the likes of Matthew Murdock had no power to stop.  Even without  her prodigious strength, Jones had a mind that moved faster than the crack of a bullwhip and bit just about as deeply when you found yourself on the receiving end of it.  And today, it seemed, she wanted to have it out with him over his son.

 

She had the restraint to hold back long enough for them to get into the apartment with the door firmly locked behind them before proceeding, “He turns 16 soon.”

 

“I do remember his birthday, Jessica,” Matt intoned, tossing his keys unerringly into the little basket where they stayed for easy access at home.

 

He moved on quiet feet over to the dilapidated, marshmallow soft dog bed that occupied far too much space by the kitchen island, making sure to be loud enough that he didn’t startle Max Jr. when he leaned down to pet him.  He was still in pretty good health for his age, but the years had taken at least some of his hearing, so they took care not to surprise him.  The gray pitbull, lazy and accommodating in his old age, only grunted and rolled a bit, tail thumping against the floor.  Then Jessica’s boots echoed on the floor behind him and suddenly Max Jr. was floundering up and trotting over to get love from her.  The traitor.

 

She crouched to rub at his jowls, “Really? Cause here I thought you got the kid out of bed early on a Sunday and took a special trip to drop him at the bar for the whole big, scary hour you’d be at church.”

 

“Frank’s not home for another week,” Matt replied, mulish, giving her a tiny inch of ground in hopes that it would be enough.

 

It wasn’t.

 

“An _hour_ ,” she repeated, stressing the syllable very carefully as if to emphasize the ridiculousness of the concept behind it.

 

Since the dog had abandoned him as means for a convenient distraction, Matt stood up slowly, leaning his weight against the kitchen island.  He weighed how much more he was going to give the investigator willingly before he truly dug his heels in.  Whatever it was, it would have to be honesty.  True, she didn’t have his auditory knack for telling a falsehood, but life had taught her to smell a lie a mile away even without it.

 

He settled on, “I don’t like him to be without someone he can reach quickly, and it’s not like I can have my phone on in Mass.”

 

“So? Let him go to Avenger’s Tower.  He’s got friends there.”

 

“You’re his friends,” the reply sounded too fast even to Matt.

 

Jessica snorted indelicately, “He feels babysat with us, Murdock. Why not let him go to the Tower? He’s got actual friends there and all the back-up you could ever want.  He’s got a whole pantheon of people who are pretty much weapons of mass destruction in case the big bad bogeyman decides to show up during the _hour_ you’re away.”

 

Matt’s jaw clenched with a click, too sudden to be anywhere approaching casual.  She knew she’d run him right into a trap and was just waiting for him to walk the rest of the way into it.   He could practically feel her expectant stare boring into the meat of his shoulder where he was side-on to her.  He heard Max Jr. shift to look at him as well.  Traitor.  Still, even with a headache and zero preparation for this discussion, Matthew Murdock could just about out-stubborn anyone.  He set his stubbled jaw firmly and slid his hands into his pockets.  The slope of his spine was easy, but the line of his shoulders said very firmly that he would not be baited.  

 

When the strongwoman spoke again, she sounded amused in her own sardonic way, “Y’know, Jack tried the silent thing on me too.”

 

Her mouth made a small almost-slick noise as it twisted into a smarmy grin, “Tried being the active word.  Too bad the brat doesn’t know I’ve been around you long enough to know ‘I’m fine’ is code for ‘I am a danger to myself and others and should be stopped immediately.’”

 

“You’ve also been around you long enough,”  Matt rebuffed, unable to fight a smirk of his own.

 

“Cute.  Also? Nice try.  I think you and I both know that I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on between you and the kid.”

 

“It can’t be that bad.”

 

“Kicked puppies have looked less pathetic.”

 

Silence settled in again, rolling over them like a dense fog.  Matt’s head tipped back a little on the strong column of his neck and he reached back with one scarred hand to rub at the muscles there, squeezing a bit to alleviate stiffness.  He listened in to the steady in-out of Jessica’s breathing, not even the slightest uptick to indicate impatience or strain.  She was willing to wait as long as it took to hear him speak.  Matt supposed he should feel honoured.  This was Jessica’s way of showing she cared about them, brusque though it was.  She wouldn’t have come out of her way just to hold him at emotional gunpoint if she didn’t feel for him and Jack at least a little bit.

 

He heard her walk casually over to the couch, Max Jr. in her wake, flopping down onto the cushions and essentially upping the ante.  It had gone from an emotional hold-up to an outright siege.  

 

A wave of exhaustion washed over him, pushing his head under and seeping down into his bones until it lived in the very heart of him.  Maybe this wasn’t a fight he wanted to choose today, didn't have the energy to expend on outlasting Jessica damn Jones.  Pushing off the counter, he padded over to the refrigerator and pulled it open, reaching over to where he kept ‘his’ beer.  The cool of the glass was soothing against his knuckles as he tapped the nearest bottle, pulling out two, one for him and one as a white flag for Jessica.  He found the weak point in the seal of the first bottle with his thumb, pressing down and plucking off the cap as he made his way over to the couch to join her, holding the bottle in the direction of her heartbeat.  It hung in the air, untaken.  

 

“...I wasn’t even supposed to have him.  I can’t lose him,” Matt said quietly, letting her have his surrender fully.

 

Accepting the peace offering for what it was, she slipped the beer from his hand.

 

“Okay, but what does that have to with the Avengers? Personally, I’d have thought that any of your, frankly weird, enemies would be more inclined to try and take down two of us instead of the _entire_ Tower,” Jessica deadpanned before taking a swallow of her beer.

 

Matt took a moment to open his own beer, picking fretfully at the label, “I think there’s a rapidly developing expectation among all involved that Jack is going to be their peer.”

 

Jessica tapped a chipped nail against her bottle, the ragged edge half-muffling the sound of it, “He _is_  their age.”

 

“Obtuse is an ugly colour on you, Ms. Jones,” Matt quipped, aiming for a cut.

 

Well used to his sharp repartee by now, she parried it with expert ease, “You would know.”

 

Max Jr. whuffed almost like laughter and Matt felt the sharp sting of betrayal yet again.  

 

“Wanda’s twins have started asking when he’s going to join up.  They’re not the only ones, just the most vocal.  He always comes back from the Tower with this tense energy, like he’s a spring that’s coiled too tight.  I catch him watching me sometimes and there will be this little,” he mimicked the sound of a short intake of breath, like a person wanting to speak, “but he’ll never say anything.  I’m terrified of the day when he does.”

 

“Because you know he’s going to ask if you’ll train him,” Jessica said.

 

“Yes.”

 

“Because you have no intention at all of saying ‘yes’.”

 

“....yes.”

 

Jessica thumped her full weight back onto the couch, her head over the back of it.  Her hair draped down the upholstery, rubbing in ways that did bizarre things to Matt’s hearing, the strands a susurration against time-worn leather.  She looked up at the ceiling, thinking in silence, taking another swallow of her beer as if answers lay at the bottom of the bottle.  Matt decided to help her in her search while the seconds stretched into minutes.  The determined tension had bled from her, replaced instead by a heavy consideration as she rolled thoughts around in her head.  Her free hand went down to scratch at Max Jr.’s ears, his contented grumbles a low bass note in the unquiet still.  At last, her jaw opened with the faintest shift of muscle.

 

“Would it be such a bad thing? Jack being trained, I mean.  Might help you sleep easier knowing your kid could defend himself.”

 

The terror in Matt’s stomach sat there like a ball of ice, heavy and cold and slick, “It doesn’t stop with self defense, Jessica.  There’s too much of me in him for that, too much of Frank.  It didn’t stop there with me.  It didn’t with any of us.  He deserves to have the normal life my father wanted for me.”

 

Her scoff rippled through the couch fabric, “And what does he want?”

 

“He’s a kid.  He doesn’t know what he wants yet.”

 

“Oh my god,” Jessica muttered as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

 

He immediately went on the defensive, “He doesn’t.  He has no idea where this path leads.  The looking over your shoulder, watching people you care about die in stupid, callous ways...the lies, the lost time, the abuse, and all the complications.  He deserves a different life than all this.”

 

Jessica heaved herself up off the couch to dispose of her beer bottle, much to the chagrin of Max Jr. who proceeded to whine like the world was ending.  

 

She walked as she talked, her voice shifting subtly as new corners of the apartment caught it and reflected it back at Matt, “Look, I don’t know what other folks have told you about normal, but let me tell  you right now, I get a good look at it daily and it’s pretty shit.  People don’t need super powers and fucking paramilitary training to tell lies or get lied to.  They don’t need to wear some stupid mask to lose people for shitty reasons.  They certainly don’t need your level of post-human masochism to get hurt and waste time.  Just _living_ is complicated, Matt, and if you’re refusing to train him or get him trained to give him some mythical fairy tale ‘easy life’, you’re setting yourself up for a fall.”

 

There was a clink of glass as the bottle went into the recycling and she continued, “Look at it this way, you can’t change the fact that you are Matt Murdock, that Frank Castle is the Punisher, and that you are his parents.  Nothing short of a time machine and a DNA overhaul can change that for the kid.  Your bad guys are always going to gun for him no matter how far under the radar you try and put him.  You’ve got two choices.  You can either get him some training and give him the tools he needs to keep up with being your son...or you can sideline him permanently, painting a target on his back and the backs of anyone he ever gets involved with.  Sure, both choices kind of suck a bit, but at least one of them guarantees that if he goes down, it’s on his own terms.”

 

She saw the stricken look on the vigilante’s face, the complexion gone ashen, and she took a bit of pity on him, “...at least talk to him about it.  He feels shut out.”

 

Even Matt could feel how forced his nod was, the muscles in his throat locking and making it hard to swallow.

 

“Look, are you going to freak if I head out and send Jack home?”

 

“No um..” the lawyer started out lamely before pushing himself up and running a hand through his hair, “No, why don’t I come with you and I can walk Jack home? I think we could both use the fresh air.”

 

It earned him the very faintest wry, approving grin, “Good luck finding any in this shit-hole.”

 

 _____

 

Matt waited outside the bar for Jack, his cane tucked up into his arm, demonstrating for all the world an outward appearance of infinite serenity.  The rim of his ruby lenses delicately masked the slight pucker as his brows drew inexorably down.  His mouth was a soft curve in his face, neither up at the edges nor pulling downwards, as if he were a man whose very being sat at the crossroads between supreme sadness and indefatigable calm.  He was a stone angel at the tomb, only the mad thunder of his heart to give away his mounting anxiety.  Of course his talk with Jessica had made his choices clear to him, but it hadn’t done much to banish the specter of fear lingering over his heart.  He suspected nothing would, but then again, that was what made him the Man Without Fear.  It wasn’t that he was never afraid, not really, simply that in the moments when it did steal over him, he soldiered on despite.

 

It was so easy to forget that, however, when the door of the bar swung open and Matt found  himself assailed by all the myriad of things that made up his son in his sightless world.

 

Jack was the very soft scuff of canvas and rubber shoes on the ground (he was at the age where boys somehow forgot to pick up their feet, as if their own newfound height befuddled them).  He was the whisper of jersey t-shirts and the rasp of denim.  He was the whisk of soft hair grown just slightly too long and falling in waves over the top of his ears, swept back from his brow (he’d asked once what colour it was and it was black, Frank had said, black as desert night).  Jack was the sharp-subtle tang of the rosemary oil he’d taken to wearing once he’d found out what the chemical stink of his cheap cologne did to Matt’s nose.  For some reason he’d never taken to wearing the Old Spice that Frank did, that Matt’s father had done (and Matt is secretly glad of it, quietly appreciating his son’s attempt to differentiate himself just a bit more from the riot of sounds and smells every day).  

 

Above all, Jack was a lull in the roar of the world.  He moved with a cultivated economy of motion, did as little as necessary to achieve what he wanted to.  He’d grown up around Matt’s super senses and as he’d gotten older, it had shaped him.  He worked hard to avoid clattering and the grandiose gesturing and posturing unique to young men.  Jack wasn’t a boy who raised his voice higher than was necessary and he had taken very early to speaking with low tones, contoured ever so slightly with a faint rasping creak that _surely_ must have come from Frank.  There was no hiding the New York in him though, his ‘R’s their own creatures and his accent threatening sometimes to travel upwards into more nasal territories.

 

Matt loved every inch of his strange, quiet, rosemary, New York boy.  It sent a swoop of fear in his belly whenever he imagined a world without this.  How could he possibly make this choice? How could he give Jack this choice?

 

“Dad?” Jack asked, pitching his voice as dulcet as its Hell’s Kitchen, Frank Castle rasp would allow.

 

Speaking through the teeth of his courtroom facade, Matt smiled, “Hey kiddo.  Figured we could walk home.  Smells like it’ll rain later, but we’ve got time.”

 

His heart twisted when Jack sounded even the faintest  bit unsure, “Sure, dad.”

 

Almost on instinct Jack held out his arm and Matt put his arm through, letting his cane slip down to tap at the pavement ahead of them.  Both of them knew he didn’t need it, but it was social camouflage, the best there was.  People tended not to linger too long on the people they considered handicapped, whether out of respect or out of discomfort.  They glazed over when Matt made his blindness apparent (even though sometimes it galled him in his heart of hearts to be seen that way, he wasn’t afraid to use it to his advantage when the situation called for it).  It was the best way to have privacy in public places, something Matt was counting on.

 

He leaned in slightly, just canting his head and he caught the aromatic snap of rosemary, slightly bitter but naturally so, as he murmured, “Your Aunt Jessica told me we had some things to talk about.”

 

Jack’s heart skipped a bit.

 

He replied, “...we don’t have to.”

 

Matt’s heart twisted again, but he kept his voice calm, “Aunt Jessica made it pretty clear we do.  You’re not in trouble, Jack.  It’s just you and me.”

 

He could practically hear his son’s indecision.  He could sense the way his heart fluttered, almost relieved that he could finally say it, but hovering at the edge of familial duty.  He didn’t want to disappoint Matt or hurt him.  He didn’t want to risk hurting Frank even while he was away.  Listening to his irresolution was like hearing a little bird beating itself against the bars of a cage, wanting to be free, but ever imprisoned.  Fondly, he pinched his son’s hand, startling him out of his doubt.

 

“Hey.  Follow me.”

 

Curious and willing, Jack surreptitiously allowed himself to be led while giving the appearance of leading his father.  Matt let his body remember the familiar way to a place that was more home than his little apartment with his father had ever been.  He let the siren song of Hell’s Kitchen pull him along and along to a place he’d never in his life dared to show Jack for fear of an endless fever finding its way under his skin.  Matt let himself slowly leech the concern from his veins, replacing it with something approaching pride, something near to the thrill of sharing a closely guarded secret.  This was a new precipice to hurl himself over, but he only had to remind himself that he wasn’t going into the abyss alone and neither was Jack and it seemed less daunting than before.  He knew they were getting close when the ancient whiff of canvas and talcum powder, the occasional wistful suggestion of Old Spice, caught his nose.  Carefully, he led Jack around to where he knew the best entrance to the abandoned gym was, the door most easily jimmied.  With care and reverence usually only reserved for church, he pushed it open and slipped Jack inside.

 

“Wait...is this?” there was awe in that hushed tone and it filled Matt with a sense of weight and gravity.

 

“Fogwell’s Gym.  Your grandpa Jack trained here, I trained here, and now it’s up to you,” he said.

 

Matt was almost honoured by the way his son’s heart went crazy at the implication.

 

“Easy, easy.  I want you to think really hard about this.  This is a huge step, bigger than you can possibly imagine right now.  Your Aunt Jessica thinks you should just to learn self defense, but if you’re half the man your father is, it will escalate sooner or later.  Jack, before you say yes, you have to be one-hundred percent sure.  This isn’t like in the movies.  This will be hard.  It will hurt.  You’ll want to quit, but Murdock and Castiglione men? They don’t quit.”

 

He felt like he was swallowing stones as he went on, “But there’s no shame in saying no now, either.  You say no and me and your father? We work our asses off to keep you as far away from all this as possible.  But this is the choice.  No shame either way, but no turning back.  You’ve got time to think about it...no way I’m involving  you in this until we have a long talk with Frank, but I’m letting you know now what this involves.”

 

There was a small, wet sound as Jack worried his lower lip, a heady burst of mint from his mouthwash mingling with rosemary in the air.

 

Matt filled the silence, “But you’ve got to understand that this doesn’t mean you stop studying either way.  I don’t care if you major in...underwater basket weaving 101, you’re going to college and you’re getting a degree.  This does not change no matter what you decide.”

 

That startled a helpless laugh out of Jack, a small chuffing thing that was no less full of honest mirth than a full guffaw.  It broke the tension that had lingered over the entire day completely, scattering it and making Matt feel a little bit more human again.  He guessed he owed Jessica a bottle of whatever she was drinking now.  Smelled like Jim Beam this morning.  It took a little bit for Jack to settle from his giggling fit, though Matt wouldn’t have minded if it took him hours.  He’d missed that sound, so caught up in avoiding his son growing up.

 

When he finally calmed down, Jack said, “I hope you’re not mad...but Aunt Nat and Uncle Bucky already offered to train me.”

 

“Well...do you want them to instead?” Matt hedged.  He knew what answer he wanted to hear, but this was about Jack choosing his own future.

 

Jack shook his head, “I mean, maybe once in awhile? I’d...I mean...I’d rather if it was you and dad, though.  Aunt Nat and Uncle Bucky are great, but they’re...they’re super soldiers.  I know you’ve got your..” he waved vaguely around his head to indicate Matt’s super senses, knowing full well his dad would know what he was doing, “but that’s not a guarantee I’ll ever be like that.  I guess I’d like to learn to fight like a real guy first.”

 

Matt cocked his head, going to lean up against the ropes of the ring, soaking in the memories of it, “Does it ever bother you, not having - ?” he mimicked Jack’s waving.

 

“Sometimes.  A little.  Sometimes I feel like I can’t keep up with Cassie, and Billy, and Teddy, and Tommy…”  He trailed off.

 

“Jackie, Teddy isn’t even human.”

 

It earned him another little snorted laugh, “Dad, I’m pretty sure that’s racist.”

 

The older man held up his hands in mock surrender, grinning all the while.

 

Jack tucked some of his soft hair back behind his ear and Matt was struck with the memory of doing it for him when he was still too young to mind, almost missing when he said, “But then there are folks like Uncle Clint, Kate, and dad...and I guess I don’t feel so out of place.”

 

Overwhelmed by the notion that his son had ever once felt anywhere near out of place, Matt forgot the imaginary boundaries that existed between fathers and their teenage sons.  He bridged the gap between them and pulled his boy up into a fierce hug, full of all his fierce protectiveness and even fiercer love.  He felt a brush of bristle against the side of his face and realized that, quite without his notice, Jack had started the beginnings of peach fuzz.  The softness of youth was quickly leaving him, turning him more and more into his fathers’ son with every passing day.  The day might come when he could never have this again, when all these stolen moments would run through his fingers like sand in the hourglass.  For today and for now, though, there was only this, the son he loved more than life itself.

 

Fiercely and with all the love he had in his heart, he promised, “Kid, whatever else the world takes from you, as long as any of us are still kicking, the one thing you have is a place.”

  


_____

 

_Author's Notes_

_So, I have no idea where this came from.  Do not ask me where this came from.  I have no clue what the hell this is.  This all started when I stumbled across a picture of Milo Ventimiglia and I thought "Huh, I bet if Punisher and Daredevil had a kid, that's what he'd look like" and now here we are.  For reference, this isn't Marvel-616 or the MCU, not entirely.  We'll call this Marvel-MC17.  Why not.  It will follow the MCU more or less for the Street Levels, but with obvious comic inclusions for the Avengers, Young Avengers, etc.  Even then, some of the timelines are fudged._

_\- No, I'm not entirely sure where Frank is yet.  In my head, he's probably working freelance for a yet-underground Nick Fury._

_\- Since most pitbulls only live an upwards of 15 years and Max was already grown before Matt and Frank had Jack, we're operating under the assumption that he passed away and the family now has Max Jr._

_\- In our universe, Natasha and Bucky are a couple._

_\- Jessica and Luke are married, but have not had their baby yet._

_\- Nope, I have no idea how Frank and Matt had Jack yet.  That's a story for another installment._

_\- I really hope you guys enjoyed this.  If you did, there will likely be more to come._

_\- For those who don't know, Frank Castle was born Francis Castiglione._

_\- Jack's full name is "Jack Francis Murdock" and he was based off of this image http://thats-normal.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Milo-750x400.jpg_


End file.
